Submitted by Roger Propst, Republican Executive Committee Chairman
Last week Deirdre Purdy, Chairperson of the Democrat Party in Calhoun County, penned an opinion piece about how a Democrat controlled county commission hadexerted great influence on the TransCanada company to locate a pipeline compressor station in Calhoun County rather than Ritchie County. She outlined steps taken by commissioners to compare and contrast our county’s tax rates to Ritchie’s for TransCanada staff. She would have us believe the presentations were so powerful that Ritchie County did not even make a pitch for the compressor station.
Does anyone really believe that Ritchie County would not even be interested in securing such a significant increase to the tax base of their county?
Does anyone really believe that TransCanada did not have the ability to obtain the tax rates of these two counties without the input of politicians?
Does anyone believe that TransCanada did not map the path of this pipeline and compressor station locations in counties whose tax rates were lower. Ritchie county’s tax rates are significantly higher than Calhoun.
I believe the answers to these questions are obvious when confronted with facts. It is true that having to house prisoners in regional jails imposed significant financial hardship on the counties, especially those without excess levies. It is also true that tax revenues from the compressor station provided the funds to pay off the regional jail debt. What is not true is that intervention by Calhoun politicians had anything to do with the compressor station being located in Calhoun County.
Ms. Purdy says Democrats identify problems and seek ways to fix them. Tell that to all the folks in our county who still don’t have access to water, and yet the Commission allocated 1.2 million dollars in American Rescue Plan Act(ARPA) funds to Broadband access. Calhoun was the only county in West Virginia to do that. Many neighboring counties allocated funds for real infrastructure improvements, i.e., water and sewage projects. The Commission was challenged
on this situation many times but refused to reallocate any funds to water and sewage projects. Only after much pressure from the public did they relent and allocate one million dollars to water projects. Does this look like Democrats are problem solvers? I think not. Democrats have controlled Calhoun County politics for most its existence. One-party control never ends well. It breeds a sense of entitlement and resistance to oversight by the people.
The tide of one-party rule in Calhoun County has come to an end, and the people have begun to assert their role of holding those they elected accountable.
If anyone doubts that fact, I submit the following information as proof of that fact. Since August 2016, 1,712 Calhoun County Democrats have switched their party registration. Republican voter registrations will soon surpass Democrats for the first time in the county’s existence. Guess who the people think is the party that sees problems and solves them. It is abundantly clear at this point.
Roger Propst, Chairman
Calhoun County Republican Executive Committee
